Character Selection (No Bueno)

Battleborn Open Beta Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#3

More like, isn’t just that an indirect consequences of the system allowing someone who disconnected to connect again and join back the game he unintentionally left?

Also, that’s a tough situation here.
-only play one character
-that character is one of the starter character
-game is currently full of peoples that are starting and therefore have pretty much only the starter characters to choose from
-the character in question is one if not THE most popular character among the starters (very cool and original skin, Tiny Tina’s voice actress, and so on)

I’m trying to think of a worse character to pick up as your “only pick” during the first few days of an open beta/ after release but I’m not sure there’s any.
If on top of that you’re not super fast to pick the character, that’s not going to go well.

Either way, as I said above, I’m not sure that it’s actually to punish peoples who left, but on the contrary to help peoples who left unintentionally.

For the proposed solution… Not sure it would work well without creating long queues again.

#4

Then how about a lobby where you can see teams and free players and people can attempt to draft you or you can attempt to join an established team that may want you. Also, allow quick join to teams that may need a fill…

Maybe show what fill spots are needed for those teams and filter those fill spots for the character you play.

So many solutions. This is a game, above all, and it should be fun for everyone.

#5

Join one of the many PS4 Communities and when you get on or even before you get on, use your phone to message the community that you are looking for a group to play with. Specify the character you play and all of that jazz. But if you leave because you are sour that you did not get the character you want to play when you are solo-queuing, I have no sympathy for you or any of the people that are complaining about “their” character being chosen.

1 Like
#6

Not everyone has time to learn every character or even a large enough amount of decent characters that fit their play style and they can be useful to the team. Not everyone is going to play Ranked either. Not everyone wants to sift though forums and find groups though third party sites every time they want to play a game.

Some people just want to play as a character in a game, have some fun, and provide a skilled, experienced, effort to their team. Especially because of the way the items and load outs are set up. I can have to character load outs and maybe if I get lucky enough both of the characters I have load outs for don’t get played.

There are many ways to make this better for everyone and easier for solo players who don’t want to commit to trying to find a full party for every game.

-Load outs limit character builds
-Time limits character experience

#7

The same thing has happened to me. It comes down to the fact that you’re leaving before the game even starts and it should be able to get somebody back into your spot. I have a post about this as well. If you are a higher rank than a person with a certain character you should get precedence over the lower level. It’s ridiculous that character selection comes down to whoever can choose their character the fastest.

#8

As suggested, joining a group and playing with them seems like the best temporary solution to this on your side. If you can communicate with your side with a voice chat, you’ll have little worries about it becoming a race to pick Orendi.

#9

This problem of quickly choosing a character before anyone else has always plagued MOBA games for years. Best way to stop it is to have a que system in place that allows one to choose what role they want to play as. As Battleborn Meta is defined, roles can be more specific but at first, Attacker, Defender and Support would work.

In any Multiplayer game that has choice of character (MOBA wise) if a person leaves during character select, everyone gets booted back to main menu and has to reque up.

If you are not willing to play and learn about the other characters, you become a hindrance to the other team because you do not know what the other characters can do, their cooldowns, best builds, what they will be doing on the map, etc. More game knowledge you have, better team player you will be.

#10

In a short term solution, not sure I can see anything server side. On a longer term solution though, maybe there’s somethign to ameliorate the situation.
Maybe making the character selection in two steps.
First everyone pre select the character they want. give only 30sec for that. It is displayed to everyone.
During the pre selection, several peoples can select the same character.
And then it has to be validated, a pop up appear after the 30sec (or after everyone pre selected if earlier) asking if they’re okay with that character.
If there is no overlap in character, this should run smoothly. A pop up appear asking you if you want to validate this one or another one after all. If someone wants to change his pick to equilibrate the team after seeing what the other choose (for example, taking a healer/support because no one selected one), then he can.
If there is overlap, then the two overlapping cannot hit the validate button before one accept to change (that way, if one picked up a character but is okay with changing while the other isn’t, there’s still room to solve it quickly). It will also propose you to “leave’” and go back to the lobby without any punishment, in such case the game will bring in another person.

The problem is, right now, the game has no way to have someone else joining even during the character selection, because it’s already “inside the game” from the previous loading screen. Not sure it can be changed easily. But at the very least, please separate the pre selection from the validation and make the validation of characters only available after everyone preselected.

There’s 90sec on that screen, that should be more than enough here.

#11

It should really just be throwing people back into queue when someone dodges at character select. It blows my mind that it doesn’t. Give the leaver a 5-10 minute time out and throw everyone else back in queue. Don’t make us start a man down. Incredibly short sided on Gear Boxe’s part here.

2 Likes
#12

Every MOBA ever does this. They are not going to change how their game works just because you’re too spoiled to play a different character once in a while.

2 Likes
#13

Heroes Of The Storm.

#14

If you can’t learn to play as another character, then this game really isn’t for you. I’m sorry, that’s just how it is. You want to play the game the way it’s not meant to be played. There are plenty of players available, and they can all be pretty fun to play as.

#15

You need to learn how this operates. Games are meant to be fun for everyone and rules have never been strict. Games are for pure entertainment and are meant to reach a broad audience. If some players such as myself wish to only play one character, which there are many who do… Then the developers who are creating this game to reach as large of a audience as possible needs to consider the fact that it’s not fun to not be able to play as the character you wish to play as.

There are many things that detract customer interest and understanding what they are allows for a game to flourish rather than fall flat.

I have beta’d quite a few games and told the developers about the problems, they weren’t fixed and the games never got passed initial launch. The games fall short of the mark when they don’t meet customer expectations of how a game should be handled.

Above all a game needs to be entertaining. The game has to provide enough challenge to keep interest but flexible enough to fit individual goals of satisfaction and entertainment.

Personally, I made this thread as a point toward the fact that I shouldn’t be told that I have to choose a different character. I play Sub-Zero exclusively in MKX and I can hold my own online. It’s an ultra successful game.

You may not like MKX, that is fine, but the models it provides shows successful ways of dealing with a situation.

This and all games should learn from what the customers like and dislike about games. Being able to customize your experience to your preference. Games are paid for by people to be entertaining not to be frustrating.

I am only glad that recently within the years have companies opened their beta testing to the public to give feedback to help build a better game experience.

The problem is that too many people on here give the wrong feedback without having any knowledge of what will make the game playable for many years rather than several hours.

It should be the goal of any developer to create an IP that people can easily recognize and know that it will be tailored to their expectations of fun and entertaining.

This is one small matter that becomes an issue only when the option is taken away.

I want to play as the character of my preference. I don’t want to deal with exceptions. I paid for an experience. I expect the experience I paid for. Otherwise, I won’t pay for the experience or refer anyone else to it. In fact, I may actually make it my mission to destroy the IP just because of one missing feature. I may be powerful enough with enough influence to make a contribution to effect the sales of this game.

Overall, You need to learn that this is a game and games are meant to be tailored to individual experience. That’s why people make up so many custom rules and including the fact that MOBAs came from CUSTOM game play from WARCRAFT III.

MOBAs started off as a customized experience that many enjoyed and gave input to create the great tailor experience we have today.

I played DotA in WC3 and I played many custom games that influenced many of the games we have today.

Go read a book on game development and another one on marketing.

#16

I sent a message to a guy to tell him that leaving only hurts his team, and he sent a voice message back… couldn’t have been older than 6 years old and he yelled at me for picking HIS hero. I just… I… we’re playing with 6 year olds here, and others who act like they are 6 still.

While it is entertainment, it’s not like a tv show or movie that you can turn off or fast forward cause you don’t like the plot. It’s a “team game” which means you are committing to 9 other real life people to interactively entertain each other. Doing whatever you want only makes the team suffer, but this is a new concept for people who have never played a team oriented game.

Also quitting cause you didn’t get the hero you wanted… that’s super inconsiderate and it happens to me almost every game.

#17

Look at it this way, if everyone chose the same character, you could have an extremely unbalanced gameplay due to the fact that I could just compose a team full of tanks like Montana.

Like I said, if you can’t learn to play one of the other MANY characters, you’re being selfish, and this game isn’t for you. You should either not play it, or find 4 friends that will play with you that don’t want your character. You not choosing to pick another character is the reason this game isn’t entertaining for you, because you haven’t experienced what the other characters have to offer.

Why should the entire gameplay change because you can’t learn to have fun as another character?

#18

You are missing a point entirely. This is a game for fun and it should have features in place so that it is fun. Ranked Play is different. People know they are going into a competitive match and should expect playing other than their main. This is not Ranked play. These are casual exhibition matches for entertainment.

You should be able to only play as a single character of your choosing, especially if you are attempting personal records or you just don’t like the other characters.

Maybe this conversation isn’t for you because you don’t seem to understand the purpose of entertainment and entertainment products. You don’t make a game to suit a small group of individuals, you make it so that it’s accessible and enjoyable by anyone who may pick it up; At least if you are trying to make money from the product.

Games evolve to be easier to pick up and play by anyone. That’s why mobile app gaming has exploded with such simple games.

But this isn’t an argument for making the game simpler, it’s an argument to add a feature that will improve gameplay overall for everyone. Getting to pick your character before you queue into a NON-RANKED VERSUS would mean less people leave for not getting the character they wanted and are more likely to play with people experienced in the character they chose.

Also, too many people are picking the same character it should be obvious that there is something that needs to be looked into as of why everyone is trying to play the same character. Most people opt for the character that is going to score them the most wins even if they are unaware of how overpowered that character may be.

Also, Heroes of the Storm Online Versus has no problem with composition and still has unique characters every match. So your arguement of everyone running the same character is still illegitimate. The story can be run with all of the same character successfully with no issues.

Technically, a team running all the same character shouldn’t have an advantage over a team that is running a variety. It wouldn’t even make sense and they should notice a major impact in there ability to perform against the variety of skills and abilities. If you can fill an entire team with one character and outperform most or all other matches then that character is overpowered and needs to be tuned and counters need to be made available to the other characters.

Generally, each character has a specialization. Having that specialization should mean that they would technically need other characters to perform well in a game.

Even a team of all Oscar Mikes, (IMO: This is a good starting character and is a mild jack of all roles.) This is the only exception to the balancing. You shouldn’t see a huge advantage or disadvantage with a team of all this character. Games of all Oscar Mikes against any team should be at least 48% win rate.

#19

Don’t want someone else to play as your hero, then don’t play with other people. Otherwise learn to live with it. When you have to share things with others you aren’t always able to get things the way you want (a fact I have to explain to my toddlers daily)

#20

You missed the point. You guys are the problem with gaming communities. You don’t offer any real solutions you just want to accept things the way they are. I am here to promote changes that will improve the gaming experience for everyone and should allow more people to jump in and enjoy the game. After spending time with one character they will almost naturally move on to other characters. If they can’t play the way they want to play they will not play at all and that is a larger problem.

You guys are saying, “If you don’t like it leave.” I am saying, “If they don’t like it they will leave.” We are in a way saying the same thing but you are pro-abandonment. I say, if you don’t like the way something is, change it.

#21

I think you are missing the point, you say that as if all games are supposed be fun for everyone. Unfortunately not all genres suit every player, whether it’s fun or not. Making it so every one could choose the same character would actually not make it any more fun than you think it would be.

You’d be seeing threads like “Full team of Ambra’s OP”

#22

Any solution that would allow players to lock down their favorite would either increase the queue times or allow more self-centered gamers to lock off content for those more considerate of others.

I’ve no problem challenging the status quo of a game for something better, but the effect on the entire community needs to be taken into account. I have no problem if a person wants to voluntarily play 1/25th of a game’s content, but the insistence that the game’s systems need to be changed to allow them to do so is unreasonable in my opinion.